Use Transcription as the basis of a premium service, like PopupChinese!
I started studying Mandarin this year, and after a while I decided I wanted to listen to some Chinese podcasts to work on my language comprehension. I googled around and found PopupChinese.
PopupChinese produces language learning podcasts in Mandrin that are fun and fresh - and a real change from the standard "Where is the bathroom" conversations used in most languange courses. And It's accessible to beginners (as well as more advanced students of the language). Lesson topics range from "your first time," to zombies and pirate zombies. They're also different from their competition in that every single one of their podcasts is available for free. They make money with their premium service.
That service includes extra study resources: high quality downloads, character writing sheets, and full transcripts for every single podcast. The transcripts (which are in English and Mandarin) provide line by line detail as to what was said in the podcast. This is great for language students to learn the characters as well as an aid for review and memorization.
This model could work for any audio (or video) where people would like to reference it again later, or review it without having to skip through the audio to find the part they need again. Do you use transcripts in this way? If you do we'd like to hear how you use transcripts to increase your site's value, drop us a line.
Rachel
Founder of CastingWords
P.S. We offer English transcription services, if you didn't know. Sorry, no Chinese yet!